The venue may have been the same but the level of anticipation, adrenalin,
excitement and weather bore little resemblance to the Olympic Games last
summer for both the spectators and British rowers alike.

Even the pressure was of a different kind, especially for two of last summer’s heroes – Andy Triggs Hodge and Pete Reed. Then they were battling for and winning Olympic gold in the coxless four; yesterday they were trying to restore pride in the men’s eight after a hugely disappointing heat on Friday.

In an attempt to motivate a squad of athletes for whom the glow of London 2012 disappeared long ago and is yet to be replaced by the lure of Rio 2016, Jürgen Grobler, British Rowing’s chief coach, has put all his eggs in one basket – the men’s eight. This is a boat in which we have never been world champions and this was something that did not look like changing after Friday’s opening salvo.

Rather than the Germans, Americans and Canadians – traditional powerhouses in this boat class – it was the Polish and French who, ignoring the medal count and reputation aboard the British eight, relegated them to third place. Thus the primary objective on Sunday was to restore pride and reverse the beating they took in the heat.

They did this to the French right from the start taking nearly a second out of them every 500m but they did not and could not dominate the Poles. In tricky conditions they were 0.3 seconds behind at 1,000m, not a huge margin but a significant one in tricky but fast conditions especially in an event where the leader at halfway traditionally goes on to win the race.

The self-belief was evident even if the skills required to master a faster moving boat was not quite there. They would halved the deficit to 0.15sec by 1,500m and the sprint for the line in front of a large home crowd was on. The British were not going to be denied a golden homecoming overhauling the Poles with 80m remaining crossing the line less than 0.5sec ahead.

The fact they were punching the air on crossing the line was in relief as much as celebration. But they are experienced and honest enough to realise that they got out of jail here and the walls will be tougher to break through when they line up against the German, Americans and Canadians.

In their defence, preparation has been difficult spending as much time training in a seven as much as an eight due to Alex Gregory’s (another 2012 gold medallist) illness. He will be back in the boat next week and then they should be able to have a decent run up to the next World Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland in three weeks’ time and the World Championships in South Korea in August.

Jürgen’s plan of using the eight to re‑motivate and energise his charges in a post-Olympic year is working but come Rio I think he will have shared his eggs amongst a couple of other baskets.